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maltatoday | SUNDAY • 2 FEBRUARY 2020 12 FILM MUCH like William Goldman's swashbuckling classic The Prin- cess Bride initially suffered at the box office due to its title, scaring off male audiences owing to its 'girlish' nature, so Louisa May Alcott's Little Women is likely to consistently fail to attract the attention of even the most lit- erary-inclined of teenage boys. More's the pity, of course, not least because an intimate un- derstanding of female hopes, dreams and desires as captured by Alcott in her late 19th cen- tury context might just have a calming effect on the young in- cels that lurk among us. That's not to say that Little Women has The Princess Brides' action and adventure to fall back on, nor that its title is in any way an act of false advertising. But as Greta Gerwig's recent adaptation proves, the contours of Alcott's source novel do not, in fact, have to be bent too far to accommo- date a fresh, relevant take on this frequently filmed mainstay of the American literary canon. Much like the actress-writer-di- rector accomplished with her breakthrough feature, Lady Bird (whose Saoirse Ronan and Tim- othée Chalamet return here), Gerwig successfully crafts a gen- tle crowd-pleaser that aims for universal appeal while eschewing any form of aesthetic vulgarity. In retelling the now-familiar story of the March sisters, guid- ed across the morally straight and narrow by their kind-heart- ed matriarch 'Marmie' (Lau- ra Dern) who pines for their temporarily absent father (Bob Odenkirk) who's off fighting in the war, Gerwig takes only a somewhat postmodern tack. In what is very much a polyphon- ic ensemble cast, the closest we have to a central protagonist is Jo (Saoirse Ronan), an aspiring writer who peddles pieces of 'scandal' fiction to a sceptical editor (Tracy Letts) all the while hoping to write something more substantial in the near future. Called back home to Massa- chusetts from her teaching post in New York City after her sis- ter Beth (Eliza Scanlen) falls ill, Jo is forced to measure up her ambitions with that of her oth- er sisters, Amy (Florence Pugh) and Meg (Emma Watson), who are all, and all the while, silent- ly judged by the austere Aunt March (Meryl Streep), while the mercurially charming figure of the half-Italian neighbourhood boy Laurie (Timothée Cha- lamet) holds sway over at least a couple of them. Playing the erstwhile stand-in for both Alcott, it could be ar- gued, Gerwig herself, it is Ronan who of course has the brightest spotlight under which to shine, and the Irish actress takes to the role with her seemingly endless supply of plucky perceptive- ness. She is the ideal budding writer: operating with an out- cast's predilection to having one foot in and one foot out of the social comfort zone, always ready to prove herself and her skills and sceptical of the Mar- riage Distraction. Gerwig's most audacious bit of adaptational re-jigging is saved for the very end, when the multiple autho- rial stand-in character of Jo is allowed to take the story to its most self-reflexive conclusion. Though the film weaves in and around too much to allow for any of the girls to gobble up too much of the attention – perhaps another of Gerwig's quiet acts of rebellion against ego-heavy, thrusting masculine narratives – and though both Watson and Writer-director Greta Gerwig builds on a post-Lady Bird winning streak with this charming and cannily intelligent take on the much loved and oft-adapted American literary classic from Louisa May Alcott Teodor Reljic Gerwig gets the girls